'Alpha House' show hits Hill

What would happen if four Republican senators all lived together? “Alpha House” is out to show you.

The new show, which can be streamed on Amazon.com, stars John Goodman, Clark Johnson, Mark Consuelos and Matt Malloy (and features cameos from Stephen Colbert and Bill Murray) and follows the trials and tribulations of four very different GOP lawmakers as they try to make their way through both the halls of the U.S. Capitol and the halls of their Capitol Hill townhouse. (It’s not exactly a foreign concept; the New York Times’ Mark Leibovich documented in 2007 the Capitol Hill living situation of roommates Rep. George Miller, Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Sen. Charles E. Schumer and Rep. Bill Delahunt.)

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When the two worlds collide you get things like a jar filled with American flag pins on the kitchen table for one’s helping as pols head out the door. Empty pizza boxes tossed about. One roommate waking another one up, asking, “Were you by any chance scheduled to turn yourself into the DoJ this morning?” after cop cars appeared outside (that inmate-to-be pol is Murray, who makes a brief and profanity-laced cameo). Discussions over whether one of the roommate’s dog is a racist. And senators letting the other senators use their filibuster speeches when in a jam.

“Alpha House” is the creation of “Doonesbury’s” Garry Trudeau and also features Bloomberg View columnist Jonathan Alter as an executive producer. The pilot episode plants the seeds for some interesting plot lines to be unraveled in future episodes: Sen. Gil John Biggs, a retired basketball coach played by Goodman, is forced to actually do the dirty work of political campaigning after he discovers that Duke University’s current basketball coach plans to challenge him in the next election. Sen. Andy Guzman, played by Mark Consuelos, is the house’s newest roommate and a young senator with a healthy appetite for sexual liasons. And Louis Laffer, played by Matt Malloy, promotes a staunchly anti-gay marriage position while consistently being questioned on his own masculinity.

The series gets a special cameo at the end from Colbert, who ends up wrestling with Laffer to prove the senator’s manlihood.